Monday, June 26, 2006

Crate Work if you can get it.

Tucked away behind KFC in Margate High Street is Bilton Square, the old works there have been fully revamped thanks to a £100,000 grant from Arts Council England South East and a further £115,000 from the East Kent Partnership. The organisation behind it are called Crate, an art group you're unlikely to have heard of because their biggest project thus far has been securing the cash to buy and refurbish this building.The Arts Council has very stringent rules about funding new groups, you can't just form one and expect a cheque in the post. So just how did a new group, which appears to have done nothing else, manage to gain almost a quarter of a million quid?

Are there any names for these people, a list of directors? Maybe there should be an investigation by the SFO, or whichever ombudsman is appropriate? I would welcome that as a taxpayer. What do we do next?